Deep Roots in Forgottonia
By - Harry Bulkeley
"Here the water went down, the icebergs slid with gravel, the gaps and the valleys hissed, and the black loam came, and the yellow sandy loam." Prairie by Carl Sandburg
When our forebears reached Forgottonia, the first thing they noticed was the plants growing in that black and yellow sandy loam- Big Bluestem, Little Bluestem, Black-Eyed Susan, Compass plant, Rattlesnake weed. Some grew higher than a man on horseback. Their roots stretched down fifteen or twenty feet after growing undisturbed for millennia.
Those roots anchored the plants when tornadoes raged over them, or wildfires blackened them for miles. They also provided and stored nutrients that made our land the richest and most fertile in the world. The wind and fire and broiling summers and frigid winters made the grass tough and resilient.
I can't help but think of us Forgottonians as being tough like those Prairie grasses. Our roots go deep. Within 40 miles of my house are the graves of six generations of my ancestors. When I think something seems difficult, I think back to the kinds of trouble they faced. Fires, childbirth, diseases without a cure, stifling days under a blazing hot sun, just to get enough food to feed their families.
Folks coming out here from the east and south hadn't seen a vast expanse of flat prairie like this. They thought that timber soil was the best for growing things. The only trees out here grew along waterways. The kind of soil that grows tall trees is different than prairie soil and not the best for growing food to nurture your family. Maybe we should think of those tall stands of eastern old-growth trees like the big cities. They may look impressive, but they aren't the source of fulfillment- at least not to us.
Some folks think that life in the trees is the best life. They look at us out here, and think (to paraphrase John 1:46) "Can anything good come from Forgottonia? I mean it's so flat and desolate, and the people are all hicks." For most of us, that's just what we want them to think. Stay up in those big city trees and leave us alone.
The Forgottonia Times has embodied the Spirit of the Prairie. It was upbeat and optimistic and reported things that mattered to us Forgottonians. All things must pass, and it's time to close this journalistic chapter. But, like the prairie and the folks who live here, the spirit will live on.
Our spirit lives in the early mornings at the coffee shops, the chats before and after church, with the neighbors who help a neighbor combine the corn or mow the yard. We show our toughness when a factory shuts down after employing our family for generations, or a Mom and Pop store closes when it can't compete with the mega-stores and Amazon.
In writing this, I reread Sandburg's poem "Prairie" and kept finding passages I wanted to include. I don't have enough space for the whole thing, but I encourage you to read it. That man from Forgottonia knew us well.
I will close with one last thought from Carl.
"O prairie mother, I am one of your boys.
I have loved the prairie as a man with a heart shot full of pain over love. Here I know I will hanker after nothing so much as one more sunrise or a sky moon of fire doubled to a river moon of water."